The tropical island of Wild World was rife with odd setpieces. An ancient temple, spinning contraptions, waterfalls, it was exactly the type of place Taranza wished Magolor had at least gotten to see once. An oddity among the oddities, the haunted castle, the place he hid the core, stood before Taranza and Susie. Some three and a half years ago, he'd come here to update the hiding spot. He led Susie through the corridors, heading for the room that used to be inhabited by that mischievous poltergeist.

When they entered the room, he gestured to the painting of Magolor on the wall, before the coils on his body tightened. "Then, it's just right back there?" He nodded. Susie giggled and pulled something out of her clothes. "I don't even need to go back there. I can just blow it up from here-"

"I'm afraid you won't be doing that, Susie." She spun around and saw Magolor entering the room. "You really should be getting to that last leg soon, it's in danger."

"I don't need you to tell me that. The room's gonna blow in one minute. We can leave now, or you can try something funny and he dies."

Taranza evidently thought that was a good time to speak up. "The core has a shield. If you can get in there, you can turn it on. It'll last five minutes."

Magolor moved over to the painting and tore it off the wall. "Why does the shield have an activation code? This place makes no sense!"

"Taranza, know that if you tell him the code, you won't have long to regret it. I could crush you like an empty can of soda if I wanted to. Don't do anything rash."

Magolor looked at the keypad, then the bomb, then Taranza. "It's okay. Go."

"But Magolor, all of Floralia-"

"Go. I'll figure the code out myself."

The timer on the bomb ticked down. 34. 33. 32. Magolor noted that a label on the top read PRG. Susie laughed. "So sorry, but we must be leaving now. Have fun blowing up! Or don't. It doesn't matter to me." They left.

Magolor stared at the keypad. It wanted four characters. 25. 24. 23. He searched his mind for anything that might be the code. 19. 18. 17. A distant memory appeared in his mind. Hallway, door, Taranza, knock, code. 10. 9. 8. He reached for the keypad and typed. H2A6.

ACCEPTED. SHIELD ACTIVE.

4. 3. Magolor put up his own shield, which wasn't yet as effective as it could be, but it would work to keep him safe from the bomb. 2. 1. The explosion was moderately large, and destroyed a large amount of the area, but the core was fine. It just looked like a shining sphere of some kind. Some debris fell on Magolor, but it didn't hurt too bad. He scanned the landscape and deduced that Susie had taken Taranza pretty far away from here, trying to avoid the blast.

Daroach entered from the direction of where his ship was. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I need to go catch up with them, you make sure no one gets their hands on that core there. It's not valuable, so don't even think about taking it yourself." Magolor left. Taranza was a short distance away, still bound by the coils. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Could you get this off of me?"

"Of course." He began removing the coils. "Where'd Susie go?"

"She said she needed to defend the last leg."

Magolor finished untying his friend, and then led him back to where the core was. "You're going to need to find a new home for this thing."

"That isn't my job. I'll wait until someone in charge gets here, and they can handle it from there. Maybe then I can be unbound from it. Or they'll try to kill me. They might do that." Taranza looked a bit forlorn.

"If that happens, I swear I'll destroy that core myself, okay?"

"Uh, thanks?"

One of the People of the Sky arrived at the destroyed castle. "What are you two doing here?"

Magolor moved in front of Taranza. "We came to protect the core. It needs to be moved, and now. That, and Taranza here is still bound to it. I'd recommend severing that tie."

"That tie would have been severed already if he had not escaped judgement for his actions."

Taranza opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Magolor before he could even begin. "The actions of others are not an excuse to be as incompetent as you are. And he singlehandedly protected the core from the bomb that went off. If you include what he did when Kirby was fighting Sectonia, that makes this twice he's saved everyone in the kingdom. I believe you can make an exception for the typical rules of the land."

"We can't just overlook the laws of Floralia for him! It would set a precedent…"

"No one needs to know. If you refuse to acquiesce, I may be forced to take matters into my own hands." A strong gust of wind lifted Magolor's cape. He stared at the woman who resembled a purple flower, with something burning intensely behind his eyes. "I'd try to avoid that if I were you. I've been known to go to rather extreme measures in the past." His voice was as cheerful as it usually was, but carried a tone like that of a judge about to hand down a death sentence.

She was silent, and then indicated Daroach, who hadn't spoken yet. "Who is he?"

"Names Daroach. I brought them up here."

"...Fine. I'll do what I can, and leave you alone. Now you three, go."

Magolor and Taranza sat in a slightly cramped room on Daroach's ship. Taranza ran over the previous exchange in his mind a few times. He's so cool. "Why did you lie back there?"

"I didn't. You really did save the kingdom, twice."

"You said I did it singlehandedly. I know you well enough to know that you never avoid taking credit where it's due."

"I wanted to get them off your trail." He didn't look at Taranza when he said that.

"Are you… nervous about something?"

That question seemed to catch him off guard. Magolor tensed, very slightly. "Nervous? What would I be nervous about?"

Taranza folded his hands. "I don't know. You get like this whenever I ask why you do something for me. It's the only thing about you that's always the same. I wanted to know why."

"No comment."

.- -. - -. -.- - - ..- ... / -.. - -. .- - . ... / ..-. .. ..-. - -.- / -.. - .-.. .-.. .- .-. …

Magolor grinned at Daroach through the hole in the wall of the Starcutter. "Yeah, you can go. I don't want to take up any more of your time."

"You sure? All I'm really doing is breaking into the Ark once every few hours to steal some more things."

"Speaking of the Ark, I imagine Kirby just got in there. I need to get to repairs while I still have time, you know."

"All right, all right, I'll get out of your hair. Don't be afraid to call if you need anything." He left.

Magolor looked over the damage. As he examined where it all was, he found himself thinking out loud. "How did she know?"

"Know what?" Taranza inquired from the chair he sat in.

"These are all weak points in the Lor's defenses that even I didn't notice until now. Susie's only ever even been in here twice and I haven't told her anything about the security system. So how did she know?"

"I can't even guess. Is there a way to hack into the system?"

"If there is, I have no idea what. This is going to be a long, long, night."

Taranza got off the chair. "It's two in the morning. I'm going to collapse on your couch, if you don't mind."

Magolor turned around quickly. "I do mind. It's not safe here. Go to Marx's house."

.-. . .-. .- .-. .- - .. - -. …

The first step of repairing the Lor was done. Magolor hit a button on the console, and the rest of the buttons slowly lit up. "Captain? Are you well?"

"Yes! Yes I am! I'm glad you're back, Lor!" If he had legs, he would have been jumping for joy. "And it only took me forty-five minutes!"

"Do you know what happened to me?"

"There are some weak points in the security system that I didn't notice. Somehow, Susie knew them and shut you down from the outside."

"I did notice that such points existed, but they're small. It would have taken considerable precision to utilize them effectively. No chance it was luck."

Magolor looked up at the ceiling. "It just doesn't make any sense." He got to work on getting the doors back online.

- ... . / - -.- ... - . .-. .. - ..- ... / -.- -. - .- .-.. . -.. -. .

Magolor had worked like lightning. Building new features, fixing the holes in the security systems, and by 4:30 am, the Lor was looking better than ever. "Captain. She's here."

He wrung his hands. "I guess it's time to try out that new system, then?" He approached the upgraded monitor that showed the front door. "Susie, I wouldn't recommend pulling that stunt again. Also, the core moved. It's gone. No one here knows where it is."

Her irritated voice floated out of the speakers. "I know that, you idiot. I came here because it's time for some scrambled eggs."

"What?"

"Scrambled eggs."

"I don't get it."

"I'm gonna kill you."

"All I said was that I didn't get it!"

"No! You're the egg!"

"How was I supposed to figure that out?"

"You look like an egg!"

"Slander! I do not look like an egg!" Magolor called Marx on his cell phone. "Hey, Marx! Do I look like an egg?"

"Yeah."

"I hate you." He hung up. "Anyway, Susie, you can't get in here."

"What? Underestimating me? I don't have a lot of time for this. Pinky will be at my dad's office soon. I need to get Mecha Knight+ out for when that happens."

"I don't care about any of that. Tell me about how you knew the weaknesses in my security system."

"I will give you… a hint. That being, I didn't see them myself." She left.

Magolor turned away from the door. "So, she didn't find out herself. She heard it from someone else." What does it mean? Who told her?

.- -. -.. / - ... . -. / ... .- .-.. - - .- -. -. / -.. .. . ... / .-.. - .- -

It was over. The grass was lush and green. The sun seemed to shine brighter than usual. Magolor considered checking on Taranza, but figured it'd be better to just let him sleep. The strange laboratory that used to be there was gone, replaced with the ruins of Castle Dedede. Dedede himself was urging his waddle dees along to rebuild it. "Hey, pal. Anything you want me to do?" Magolor approached the king as he directed the waddle dees.

"Oh! You're okay! That's good!" He almost moved closer, but then thought not to. "Have you seen anyone else? I collected a few people from the rubble when I woke up, but Taranza went missing. Have you seen him?"

"He's fine. Just sleeping. He was up really late last night."

"So, you've had regular contact with him?"

Magolor smiled. "He's been living in the Lor the past few nights."

Dedede raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, that doesn't give me much confidence."

Magolor was catching Dedede up on the gist of the invasion when Kirby appeared behind them. "Hey guys! What's up?"

Dedede ran to Kirby and hugged him. "Glad you're alright."

Slowly, others began to arrive as well. Meta Knight, Bandee, Gooey, a hamster, a cat, an owl, it was a really heartwarming scene. They all celebrated that the mechanization was over. Magolor observed from the sidelines, and didn't notice that Meta Knight had left the crowd until he looked to his right and saw him standing right there. "Keeping an eye on me, are you?"

"No." His response was flat, but it seemed like he was trying to hold back some strong emotions. "Though, now might be a good time to tell you that I wasn't really asleep when you pulled that stunt in the desert."

"Hah? You were awake for that?"

"I know it didn't work, but thank you for trying."

Magolor looked down. "I heard the way she described the mechanization. I couldn't stand to know that it happened to someone else, so I tried to stop her."

"Have… you been mechanized before?"

"No. The circumstances just felt very familiar." He looked back to the crowd. "I really must be going home now. I haven't slept in twenty six hours. It's really bad, I can't believe I used to do this regularly." Magolor chuckled lightly, and then hovered slowly back to the Lor.

Through the mist he wandered, trying to hold his eyes open. When he got home, he wandered up to the Captain's Quarters. Just looking at his bed made him feel heavy. He fell asleep almost as soon as he climbed in, with his last conscious thought imagining Taranza next to him.